INSURANCE

Transamerica Spinoff Will Raise $1 Billion: An initial public offering price of $22.63 a share has been set for Transamerica Corp.’s sale of a majority interest in its Woodland Hills-based property-casualty subsidiary, Transamerica Insurance Group. With 44.2 million shares to be sold, the $1-billion transaction is the fifth-largest IPO in U.S. history and largest ever for a financial services company, a Transamerica spokesman said. Transamerica, which had originally planned to sell only 51% of its stake in the IPO, is instead selling 74% because demand was so great, the spokesman said. Stock in the new parent company, TIG Holdings Inc., was to begin trading today on the New York Stock Exchange. Transamerica announced the spinoff in July, saying it wanted to leave the property and casualty lines and focus on its core finance and life insurance businesses.